


i feel them all when you look at me

by intertwiningsouls



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Best Friends, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, stupid amounts of fluff, that's all this is, with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11698626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningsouls/pseuds/intertwiningsouls
Summary: Ronan is a dumb geekass nerd. Adam learns a little bit about letting himself be happy. The stars glow in the dark.Pynch Week 2017, day 5: Stars





	i feel them all when you look at me

**Author's Note:**

> this is so disgustingly dumb and cheesy and fluffy i can't believe i wrote it. i can't believe i'm posting it. 
> 
>  
> 
> title is from "stars across the sky" by bien because it is one a+ cheesy pynch fluff song.
> 
> "if you’re the air  
> have to catch my breath  
> if you’re the dream i dream  
> don’t wake me up from it"

 

“Where do you want this one?” Adam asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strained as he felt. He was helping Ronan clean out one of the old sheds at the Barns, and right now that meant moving a heavy, awkward box that felt and sounded like it was filled with rocks. Adam shifted it in his arms and looked to Ronan for an answer. 

Ronan glanced up from where he was sorting old tools on a workbench and eyed the label on the box for a moment before saying, “Goes in my room.” He set the tools aside and walked over to Adam, reaching out for the box. 

Adam’s face darkened. “I can get it,” he muttered. 

Ronan made a show of stepping back and raising his hands in a mock apology. Rolling his eyes, he immediately stepped forward again and latched onto one end of the box.  “You need to open three doors to get where you’re going, dickhead.”

Adam still didn’t look too pleased, but Ronan ignored him and helped carry the awkward box out of the shed, walking backward and shutting off the light as he went. He nodded at Adam to close the door behind them, and then they were crossing the lawn that led up to the house. 

Adam wondered how long they had been working. It felt like almost no time had passed, but already it was dark and the moon sat high in the sky, casting just enough light for him to see where they were going. How Ronan knew exactly where he was walking without ever needing to turn around to glance over his shoulder, Adam didn’t know. Maybe that was part of growing up in one home your whole childhood. Adam felt a pang of something like loneliness at the thought, but shoved it aside and tried to focus on getting inside the house without tripping in the dark.

Maneuvering the narrow staircase that led up to Ronan’s bedroom only proved to Adam that Ronan had been right about him needing help, and the self-satisfied smirk on Ronan’s face proved to Adam that Ronan knew it, too. 

Adam shifted the heavy box higher in his grip to make up for their height differences on the stairs and grunted, “This is your shit. You couldn’t take the bottom?” 

Ronan snorted from his hunched over position a few steps above Adam. “And further insult your heroic strength? I could never.” 

Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m flattered, but this is actually getting heavy. Is there any way we could move a little faster?” 

Ronan laughed, sarcasm dripping from his voice as he said, “Sure, why don’t you come up here and walk backwards up a staircase made for ant people while bent in half carrying a three hundred pound box of rocks.” 

Adam stopped. “You’re shitting me. Are there actually rocks in here? For fuck’s sake, Ronan, why do I-”

Ronan interrupted with a grunt as he lifted the box up another step. “Breathe, Parrish. It isn't rocks.” 

They finally made it to the top of the stairs and reached Ronan’s door. He swung it open behind himself and led the way into the dimly lit room. Adam was so focused on finding a place to drop the heavy box that he missed the light switch on his way in. 

Adam nearly stumbled over several random items and various articles of clothing that littered the floor, yet somehow a still-backwards Ronan crossed his room effortlessly and stopped right at a low wooden chest at the end of his bed. They dropped the box onto the chest with a loud thud.

Adam immediately flopped back onto Ronan’s bed with his arms above his head, breathing hard. “Remind me to say no next time you ask me for help,” he complained. 

Ronan collapsed face down next to him on the bed, his words muffled by the mattress. “You offered, shithead.” He slapped Adam’s chest lazily with the back of his hand and left it there a moment too long. 

Adam took a quiet moment to catch his breath. When he realized what he had been looking at since he had laid down he couldn’t help but let out a laugh. 

Ronan lifted his head just enough to narrow one eye at him and ask a muffled, “What’s so funny?”

Adam smiled up at the ceiling, a hint of laughter still in his voice. “You have stars on your ceiling.” 

Ronan shoved himself up on his elbows and shot Adam a dark look, illuminated only by the soft green glow of the stars above.  “Yeah? What twelve year old kid didn’t?” he asked, defensively.

Adam swallowed and said nothing. 

Ronan suddenly dropped his head back into the blankets and muttered a quiet, “Shit.”

Adam’s mouth twitched towards a smile at Ronan’s embarrassment, and he tried to explain. “It’s no big deal, I just always thought they were cool. It wasn’t like I could ask for them, though, and I couldn’t buy them for myself, either; they’d be too hard to hide.” He laughed, “Sometimes I forget what was normal for everybody else.” At that, his voice grew soft. “You probably think they’re stupid now.”

Adam glanced over at Ronan to find him propped up on one elbow, watching. He looked away when Adam caught his eye and pretended to inspect the patterns in the stars above them. Suddenly he snorted and smacked Adam’s chest again. “There,” he said, pointing to the far corner of the room, “Declan helped put these up. He made a dick constellation and Mom and Dad never noticed.” 

Adam found what Ronan was pointing at, and sure enough, his best friend’s bedroom ceiling was adorned with a penis made of stars. The absurdity of it snapped him out of his twisted nostalgia for something he never had and made him laugh until his sides hurt.  

When he looked at Ronan again, Ronan was watching him with the same expression Adam had felt on his own face when he first noticed the stars. They looked at each other for a half second, and then Ronan sat up and leaned over to open the box at the end of the bed. “You want to stay and sort through this shit?” he asked, his voice casual. 

Adam smiled wistfully, knowing Ronan couldn’t see, and quietly replied, “Some people sleep, Lynch. I have a shift in the morning.” 

“Sleep is for the weak,” Ronan insisted in a brash tone, but he heaved himself off the bed and headed towards the door. Adam followed silently, and they made their way back down the stairs and out into the night.

  
  


When Adam reached his car he hesitated at the door for a moment and they exchanged empty small talk about what project they could tackle next. Adam didn’t know if their recent development of goodbye hugs was going to be an  _ every time _ kind of thing, but he prolonged their goodbye as long as he could, just in case. 

When they ran out of things to say without starting one of their all night conversations, they stood there nervously for a moment until Adam broke the silence with a tired laugh and breathed out, “Okay, I really have to go.” 

In a burst of impatient bravery, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Ronan, resting his head on his shoulder, willing himself not to squeeze too hard or to breathe Ronan in too deeply. 

Ronan threw all of that out the window the second he brought his arms up around Adam, pulling him in tight, holding on for dear life and burying his face in his neck. 

It only lasted a second, and then Ronan tore himself away and stepped back to give Adam space to leave. Adam forced himself to keep breathing, to walk away, to act normal. He settled into the car and turned the key. 

Ronan was suddenly back in his space, crowding the open window. He stared at Adam and asked, “What time do you get off work tomorrow?”

Adam was vaguely confused by why Ronan needed to know, but in his surprise, he answered without hesitation, “Five o’clock.” 

Ronan nodded and then grinned. “Well, I have a massive rock collection to go organize, so if you could get out of here, that’d be great.” 

Adam tried to roll his eyes but ended up laughing instead, pressing a hand into Ronan’s face and gently shoving him away from the window. “Some days I can’t decide if you’re a bigger asshole or nerd.” 

Ronan backed up and shot him a wicked smile. Adam faltered for a second, distracted by the knowledge that Ronan’s smiling mouth had nearly been pressed against his neck only a moment ago.

He threw his car into reverse and shook his head at Ronan as he pulled away, smiling despite the fact that Ronan was a complete pain in the ass, and despite the fact that it was physically hurting him to leave. 

The drive back to St. Agnes passed in a blur of warm memories from the day he had spent working, playing, and arguing with his best friend. 

When Adam finally fell into his own bed that night, sleep came quickly. 

  
  


*****

  
  


The following day was the busiest day Adam had experienced in all of his time working at Boyd’s garage. He skipped his lunch break in favor of making thirty more minutes of progress on a particularly difficult repair, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to work late tonight if he hoped to finish all of his homework before school the next morning. He had neglected it the day before to spend the day with Ronan, and now he was stuck playing a worn out game of catch up. 

The previous day felt like a dream, rudely interrupted by this harsh reality of demanding jobs, important homework, an empty stomach, and aching shoulders. 

Adam missed Ronan and the way he always managed to bring laughter and a childlike sense of wonder into the mundane parts of life. He thought back to the last time Ronan had stopped by the garage during his lunch break and smiled at the memory of Ronan pelting him with bolts when he tried to get back to work repairing an engine. When Adam had insisted that he needed to keep his hands to himself or leave, Ronan had settled into a spot on the floor and told embarrassing stories about Gansey for the next two hours. 

Adam wished there was a way to casually invite his best friend to keep him company just like that again.  _ Hey, I know we spent 12 hours together yesterday, but can you come watch me work so I don’t have to miss you anymore?  _ He supposed that was effectively what happened on the late nights Ronan came by the apartment while he was studying, but that was always Ronan’s own decision, and Adam hadn’t yet figured out how to  _ ask _ for it.

Friends asked friends to hang out all the time, Adam knew, but how? What did he have to offer Ronan? Ronan always had his reasons for them to spend time together.  _ I need your help with this fucking tractor -- Gansey won’t stop talking -- I can’t sleep -- Want to see what Noah and I made?  _ Adam didn’t really have anything like that. He just wanted to be with Ronan, and there was no way to safely put that into words. 

Adam rubbed tiredly at a knot in his shoulder and tried to shake off the dull ache in his heart. He would just suffer through the last two hours of his shift alone and then go home to bury his head in homework until he passed out, and he wouldn’t have to think or feel or  _ miss _ anything anymore. 

 

*****

 

To Adam’s surprise, Ronan was waiting on the steps in front of St. Agnes when he arrived home from his shift at Boyd’s. A swell in Adam’s heart said  _ he missed me too, _ and warmth spread through him at the thought that maybe he wouldn’t need to ask Ronan to hang out if Ronan always wanted to be with him anyway.

The feeling only lasted a moment, however, because when Adam stepped out of his car and approached Ronan with a grin on his face, Ronan didn’t even look up from the leather bracelets around his wrist. He just stood silently and turned to follow Adam into the cramped apartment.

Adam assumed he must have had a bad day and decided to leave it alone. 

He headed straight to his desk to arrange his homework for the evening like he always did, and Ronan headed straight for the bed to sprawl out with his headphones on, like he always did. 

Adam settled in for a long evening, starting with the most difficult assignment. He couldn’t seem to find his focus, though, and Ronan wouldn’t sit still behind him. At one point Adam glanced back to see Ronan laying flat on his back with his legs extending up the wall, and after a few more minutes of listening to Ronan shift around, he looked back again to find him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. 

Adam pushed back from his desk and tapped Ronan’s head with the end of his pencil to get his attention. Ronan looked up and pushed his headphones off his ears, giving Adam a frazzled look.

Adam raised his eyebrows in question.

When Ronan seemingly didn’t understand the question, Adam leaned forward and gestured to Ronan’s twitching hands. “Are you okay, man?”

Ronan looked down at his hands, and then back up at Adam. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again. His head ducked low and he muttered a quiet, “Forget it, this is stupid,” to himself.

Adam kicked at Ronan’s foot. “I can hear you, asshole.”

Ronan didn’t reply. Instead, he stood abruptly and walked to the door, hand hesitating on the doorknob.

“You’re not staying?” The words slipped out before Adam realized how desperate he sounded. Just because Ronan fell asleep here some nights didn’t mean he had come over with the intention of spending his entire evening with Adam, and the fact that he had expected Ronan to stay hurt more than the fact that he was leaving after less than an hour. How much of Adam’s life had he devoted to the practice of not getting his hopes up? He still had more to learn, apparently.

Adam stood and walked to meet Ronan, who was mumbling an excuse and opening the door to step out into the hallway. Some small part of Adam still hoped for a repeat of last night’s goodbye hug, and he bumped his arm against Ronan’s to hint at it as they exchanged a casual “see you later.”

Ronan turned away without looking at him and his boots carried him loudly down the stairs and out of sight.

For the thousandth time in his life, Adam wished for the luxury of time. He couldn’t even let himself ache over Ronan’s harsh absence; the pile of homework at his desk demanded his full attention. He forced himself to return to his hunched over position above his notebooks and pushed back the stinging feeling behind his eyes. He sucked in a shaky breath and opened a textbook where a sheet of paper held his place. 

The hours passed slowly, the pile of finished homework gradually outgrowing the stack yet to be done. For the most part, Adam thought about history facts, complicated equations and Latin phrases, but as the night wore on, a loneliness too big to ignore pushed its way in and he found himself wiping a tear off of the page in front of him, trying hard not to smear the ink.

He told himself it was just fatigue and decided it was finally time to get some sleep. If he woke up a little earlier, he could finish the rest of his work in the morning.

Just as he was pulling his completed work together to pack into his messenger bag, a knock sounded at the door. Despite Ronan’s abrupt exit a few hours earlier, Adam couldn’t think of anyone else who would show up at his apartment in the middle of the night, so he yelled out, “It’s open.”

Ronan opened the door cautiously and hesitated in the doorway. The edge from earlier had worn off, and Adam briefly wondered if he had been racing. He raised an eyebrow at Ronan and asked, “You coming in?”

Ronan stayed where he was and shrugged, eyes scanning the room as if looking for something. It was meant to look casual, but Adam saw the uncertainty in it and stood up to close some of the distance. When he spoke, the emotion he’d been repressing for the last several hours leaked out, his voice thick with frustration. “It’s two in the morning, Ronan. I’m going to bed. If you want to crash here, that’s fine, just try and make up your mind sometime this century.” 

As if hearing the bite in his voice a moment too late, Adam sighed and looked at Ronan softly, his eyes offering a silent, tired apology. When Ronan still remained frozen in place, Adam gave up on the confusing feelings twisting in his stomach and turned around to head towards his bed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and reaching back with the other to turn off the light. 

When his hand found the switch the room abruptly dipped into a soft, green tinted glow. Adam stopped, heart suddenly pounding, and looked up in disbelief. 

His tiny apartment ceiling was covered in a thick blanket of tiny glow in the dark stars. 

“When did you-?” he began, disbelief coloring his voice. 

There was no answer, and for a moment Adam was afraid Ronan had left again. He turned to find him leaning nervously against the open door, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. When their eyes met, Ronan seemed to suddenly grasp that Adam was waiting for an answer. He looked away and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck before sucking in a shaky breath and starting out, “It was supposed to be romantic or some shit,” he closed his eyes for a moment and breathed another quieter,  _ shit, _ just to himself, then continued in a rush, “but I know it’s stupid, you’re not twelve anymore, fuck, I wasn’t thinking. I’m just going to take them down.”

A laugh too happy to stay contained in Adam’s body escaped, and a handful of his bottled up tears came out along with it. He sniffled hard and rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes. "You're not taking them down, asshole. I fucking like them." He closed the distance between them and pulled Ronan into a hug, not caring how tightly he squeezed or that he was probably getting his shirt wet. 

Ronan hesitated before bringing his arms up to wrap around Adam, but when Adam buried his face in Ronan’s neck he seemed to forget his questions and held onto Adam like he never wanted to let go.

Adam breathed him in and wondered at the incredible simplicity of it all. He had spent so much of his life pretending not to want the things he wanted, going without just because he was Adam Parrish and that’s what Adam Parrish had to do. He lifted his head and rested his chin on Ronan’s shoulder, looking out at the pieces of his apartment he could see. He had done this. He had made it out on his own, and he was still moving forward. The soft glow of his bedroom ceiling and the strong arms wrapped around him carried the same message.  _ You are free to have what makes you happy.  _

Adam stretched a hand up around Ronan’s shoulder to wipe at his eyes, sniffling again and blinking to try and stop the slow stream of tears.

Ronan pulled back just enough to look at him, bringing his hands up and placing them gently on either side of Adam’s face, stretching his thumbs out to wipe away the wetness under his eyes. “Jesus,” he said softly, like he couldn’t believe it, “you’re crying.”

Adam sniffled and laughed again, content to stay where he was. “Good observation skills,” he whispered, not sure he could trust his voice to stay steady. 

Ronan rolled his eyes, still moving his thumbs along the damp spaces on Adam’s cheeks, “I mean  _ why _ are you crying?” 

Adam hit his hand lightly against Ronan’s chest. “I’m happy. You make me happy, dumbass.”

For a moment Ronan looked as though he wanted to tease Adam, but as the words settled around him his eyes grew soft. “Does that mean you’ll start sobbing if I kiss you?” he asked, sarcasm barely masking the uncertainty in his quiet voice. 

A wide grin crossed Adam’s face. He brought his hands up behind Ronan’s neck as he shrugged and said, “Just piss me off again real quick. You’re good at that, too.” 

Ronan muttered “Asshole,” and breathed out a quiet laugh before pulling Adam into a gentle kiss. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *screams into the void*
> 
>  
> 
> omg i'm so sorry for this hideous ball of fluff!!! i got fed up with writing this and decided to hurry up and post it before i deleted the whole thing. and i'm so sorry it totally cuts off at the kiss there??? just imagine hours of making out and these dumb boys laying there talking about stupid shit under fake stars okay? okay.
> 
> come yell at me on [tumblr](http://neveronceintoit.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
